Study: Kidneys From "Cardiac Death" Donors Function Well

With the number of transplant centers using non-heartbeating donors starting to increase in the United States, French researchers are the latest to report that longterm outcomes for patients receiving kidneys from these donors are as good as for heartbeating donors.

Until recently, in the United States, most cadaver transplant organs have come from brain-dead patients whose hearts have not stopped. Many doctors believed that if they waited until the heart stopped to retrieve organs, the organs would be damaged from lack of oxygen.

But with waiting lists for organs growing, more than half of the U.S. organ procurement organizations are now retrieving organs from "cardiac death" donors, and a Swiss study last year reported nearly identical survival rates for kidney transplant patients.

Now, French researchers, reporting in the Journal of Urology on their evaluation of 60 transplants performed from 1986 to 1999 with kidneys harvested from non-heartbeating donors, have reached a similar conclusion.

While they found that a longer period of time was needed for the new kidney to function properly -- known as delayed graft function -- in a higher percentage of patients receiving kidneys from non-heartbeating donors, other complications were not statistically different.

"Kidneys harvested from non-heartbeating donors had the same graft survival rates as those procured from heartbeating donors," the researchers concluded. "Transplantation of selected kidneys procured from non-heartbeating donors should be promoted as a response to organ shortage."

Other sources: Journal of Urology